By concentrating the milk solids, lowering pH with lactic acid, removing sugar, and adding salt, cheese was traditionally a way to conserve milk for later consumption. Today, cheese is mainly appreciated for its organoleptic properties.
Conventional cheese making consist of three key steps: Coagulation (formation of a casein gel also called the curd), Drainage (the expulsion of whey from the curd), and Maturation (ripening of the curd into cheese).
During these steps, coagulants (such as rennet) are used to coagulate the milk, and starter cultures are used to lower pH and reduce sugar levels by transforming the milk lactose to lactic acid by fermentation, and provide enzymes for cheese ripening.
In camembert, it is well known that the balance between the rate of acidification and the rate of whey expulsion is essential to obtain the right cheese quality. Even slight imbalances will impact the texture, flavour and taste of the cheese. For a comprehensive review of the effect of acidification during coagulation, drainage, on cheese quality and ripening see B. Mieton et al.
Traditionally, camembert type cheeses are produced with undefined bulk starter cultures (starters of unknown strain composition, prepared locally at the dairy). The use of undefined bulk starter cultures has several drawbacks, e.g. lack of consistency and batch-to-batch variation, and the undefined starters may contain strains with undesired properties, such as resistance to antibiotics, pro-phages and production of allergens.
Several attempts have been made to replace the undefined bulk starters with well-defined cultures, especially DVS cultures, but without any commercial success, apparently because it has turned out to be impossible to provide a well-defined starter culture that is able to mimic the properties of the undefined starter cultures hitherto used (eg with respect to acidification curve, acidification time, and texture, flavour (eg bitterness) of the resulting cheese, etc).
Thus, there is still a need for a well-defined starter culture that can be used for the production of camembert type cheese.